Now We Need More Pickles

When I ducked downstairs to deliver a message to Matt, Emma was jumping up and down in front of the garage door, attempting to stick a magnet on the bottom of a picture hung just out of her reach. When I resurfaced a few moments later I heard her screaming in the garage, "Mo-mmy, come! Mo-mmy, come!" I raced to the door and found her standing, petrified, holding a gallon of milk and a bottle of chocolate syrup, staring at the open refrigerator door. (Yes, our refrigerator is in the garage, we live with our in-laws.)

"Do you need help closing the fridge?" I asked, confused. "No, woouh, bih-oouh (No, look, pickles)," she replied, still shaking. On the cement floor, in front of the open refrigerator, lay the shattered remains of a sweet pickle jar, a two-foot wide puddle of green juice, and four mortally-wounded pickles covered in glass shrapnel. "Oh, honey," I sighed, "are you OK? Did you touch any glass?"

I relieved her of the milk gallon and checked her over, she was fine. Then I surveyed the damage, trying to decide how best to decontaminate the six-foot radius of glass slivers. Emma watched sadly as I scooped up the broken jar and placed it in several layers of shopping bags. Her lip quivered as I walked past her to the garbage. "It's OK, Emma," I reassured her, "You're not hurt, and Mommy will clean it up."

"Oh no," she whined hopelessly, "now we nee moh bi-oouh (now we need more pickles)."

It's strange that a glass jar shatters--risking her injury and leaving me with twenty-minutes of dangerous clean-up--and somehow I had forgotten to mourn with Emma over the loss of the four sweet pickles. My words of comfort meant nothing to her until I wrote "sweet pickles" on the grocery list, showed it to her, and promised I would buy more at the next shopping trip. They can never replace the ones she dropped, but it's the best I can do.